With 82% of consumer traffic on social media estimated to come from video content by 2021, now is the time to get on the band wagon.

If you want to succeed in social media, you really need to start putting up videos. It’s easier than you might think and the beauty of it is, you don’t need a big outlay to get started. You can do your vlogging or info films on your mobile phone.

So why do it in the first place? Well, marketing videos can be used in many different ways to promote you and your products. You can produce your own adverts to promote your goods; you can take up vlogging (video blogging); or you can create tutorials to show how to use your product properly. Then there’s also webinars, presentations, interviews and live streams which will all help sell you and your products.

And while all these are a great way of connecting with existing customers, they can also help you find new audiences.

Still not convinced, well here are another couple of stats for you: social media posts with videos receive 45% more views than those without and your website is 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google if it has a video on it.

So, how do you go about it? Like me, you might want to sign up for a course either with a training organisation – I did mine through Business Gateway – or online via You Tube or a specialist company. If you are already au fait with your smart phone, it’s quite straightforward to film and then, using a special app such as Kinemaster, editing it and uploading it to your social media platform.

At my course, I learnt about the equipment needed (a lapel mike and a mobile phone with a tripod/holder) and how to plan what you want to film. Basically, you need to work out what you hope your film will achieve, who the audience is, what the messages are and what you are going to film. It’s useful to do a basic storyboard (don’t worry, you don’t need to draw anything, words will suffice) and work out frame by frame what you want to say.

Keep it simple, use cutaways and make sure you add in subtitles and name titles of anyone you interview. These last ones are really important as many people watch videos with the sound off.

I really enjoyed the day course I did and am looking forward to creating some new videos in the next week or so – once I have a minute! – and I’ll share them with you here.